Metro Fiber and On-Net Buildings List

On this page, I collect and store information about lit buildings and metro fiber providers primarily based in the US (I'd do other countries if the information were as easily found). To be on this list, a company must as part of their business hook up buildings or wireless towers to metro fiber rings and either sell services directly to companies in those buildings or sell dark fiber to those that do, and usually in competition with the local ILEC. Any man-made structure that acts as a traffic aggregation point qualifies, and the services provided at it may be lit or dark. With no further ado:

There are obviously different business models, geographies, and who knows what. Therefore, this list is not meant to be a race, in fact few of these companies compete directly against each other and all compete against the ILEC primarily. It is just a list showing the general sense of the industry and where each company might fit in it. This information is updated, but infrequently - currently twice a year in June and December. If you see a company or information that ought to be here or just have a suggestion as to how to improve this page, send me an email at info@telecomramblings.com.

Join the Discussion!

59 Comments So Far

excellant data. City Fibre Holdings in the UK just completed an acquisition of metro fibre provider called i3. They have over 300km of metro fibre in secondary cities in the UK with 325 buildings connected.

excellant data. City Fibre Holdings in the UK just completed an acquisition of metro fibre provider called i3. They have over 300km of metro fibre in secondary cities in the UK with 325 buildings connected.

Normal updates will be quarterly, when the few public companies on the list generally update their numbers. Other updates will be piecemeal – i.e. when I happen across the information or when someone sends it to me. Hence, I’ve bumped EasyTel to 1006 today.

I don’t mind sharing all the facts since it is just something we are proud of. Here is the breakdown. There are 337 high rise / common demarc buildings. There are 233 multi tenant / strip center office – retail buildings that each require their own fiber point. Then we have 437 stand alone buildings that are larger businesses that have a telecom budget worthy of building fiber to them. Car Dealers, Hotels, Churches, Restaurants, Big Retail. Really, any decent commercial property in Tulsa is on the radar. If you go to maps.live.com and put the address in you can get a nice picture view of each building. We certainly don’t have single tenant buildings less than 5000 square feet unless the owner paid us some bucks to bring the fiber in. Each building indeed is a real building and yes, it was expensive to build!

Updated Breakdown of Fiber LIT Commercial Buildings in the greater Tulsa area. Demand for reliable, high bandwidth continues to rise. Bringing utility construction in house has helped the continued growth in a down economy.

Rob, the story behind the Wilshire Connection (WilCon) of L.A. is interesting. It mirrors some other emergent players on your metro list. You may want to keep an eye on this outfit for future inclusion on the list. Yesterday I posted links to a four-part series of interviews with WilCon’s founder and CEO Eric Bender, here:

Most do, I know Zayo does. And I do as well. Basically any revenue generating, non-residential structure that is on-net and produces traffic counts for this particular list. I wish I could break it down by tower, enterprise buildings of different classes, carrier hotels, etc – but I’d never get that kind of data from enough places.

Thanks Rob, for the taking the time to put this information together. It’s nice to have it available at a glance. I wanted to mention, on behalf of FiberLight, that we also have metro networks in Nashville, Birmingham, Virginia and Maryland.

EasyTEL continues to grow its Metro Fiber Network in Tulsa metro area. We take care of commercial customers only. Of the 1155 “lit” buildings here is our breakdown based on class of building. Large Multi Tenant – 375…. Business Strip Center that each tenant has its own Optical Network Terminal – 269…. Single Occupant Businesses like Hotels, Churches, Large Retail, Industrial – 513. We continue to sweep the business sector by offering superior broadband solutions over the incumbent LEC and Cable Company.

I have been looking for that data for two years now. If you know where I can find it for any of the cable providers, please send me a link! (I do have Cablevision’s Optimum Lightpath on the list already of course.)

We compete with the incumbent cable TV provider in the Tulsa Metro area. This has remained an elusive number. My guess is that there are so many more buildings outfitted with COAX vs Fiber Direct that this number is kept close to the chest. They also install something called (Hybrid Fiber Coax) but those clients are still limited by whatever the cable modem can produce. Since 100% of EasyTEL clients have a a pure fiber optic service they can get a 10mb, 100mb, or 1000mb synchrounous data pipe which a cable modem simply cannot do at this time.

Wikipedia says: Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.

EasyTEL Communications in Tulsa has built fiber direct to over 1,869 commercial buildings and we are adding 15 + buildings each month to meet the demand for 100mbs, 1000mbs data circuits.

Updated Lightower’s numbers following their closing on Veroxity today. Also updated Zayo’s numbers based on their latest following AGL – that will change again with AFS of course. Finally, added Wilshire Connection in central LA to the list of fiber providers.

Great stuff, Rob. I have been using this info so I’m glad you’re updating it periodically. One thing, according to tw telecom’s earnings release, they’re at 27,500 fiber route miles, not the 20K you show here. FYI.

In this case, I’m just trying to isolate the one type of fiber, as a mile of intercity fiber and a mile of metro fiber mean very different things – adding them makes a less meaningful number. However, I think the time may have come to make a parallel list with intercity fiber…

Fiber lit buildings are the best places to setup business
because the fiber optical network is already present and it is cost effective. These fiber lit buildings are extrmely advantageous for business organizations.

Rob, since your response to Dave Rusin in ’09, have you found any other companies that breakdown their On-Net building similar to Zayo (FTT, Enterprise, etc)? I see Zayo FTT business is about 45% of the total.

Rob, do you have this on-net building list? It’s mostly telco centric and at a glance look to me to leave out much of their enterprise business. Pretty good list none the less. As always, with KDL, check that the fiber and electronics are actually there before committing to it.

Congratulations to ALL these companies for their success in signing and reaching new customers. Even small steps in extending network require a great deal of focus and effort when they depend on cooperation from the ILEC and electric utility. You all are providing a public service not only by providing your services to your customers but also by motivating the ILEC’s and CATV companies to upgrade their own levels of performance. I’d recommend a Federal holiday honoring all these companies!